.: ROM Part 1 VF Portrait Exhibition

Saturday, September 26, 2009

ROM Part 1 VF Portrait Exhibition

Today marked the opening of the Vanity Fair Portrait Exhibition at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. The level of my excitement could not be measured, if you knew me you would know what a fan boi of the magazine I am! It's a monthly bible of New York Culture chapter and verse... Its also a handbook, a photography manual as it were with examples of some of the most stunning photo portraiture ever created. Each month comes with more than a palpable anticipation for the next issue and once arrived I am rarely disappointed. Filled with modern day Photographers like Annie Leibovitz, Helmut Newton, Nan Goldin, Herb Ritts, Harry Benson,Robert Mapplethorpe, Mario Testino, Bruce Weber, Mary Ellen Mark and the photographers that paved the way Cecil Beaton, Man Ray, George Hurrall and Edward Steichen just to name a few.

The entrance to the museum and the exhibit properly underscored the magazines high society persona, a true sophisticated Vanity Fair.

This is an image of Margret Thatcher shown at the London exhibition, it's size certainly added to the feeling of dominance she had in life as Prime Minister. It was an amazing image to see in person.

Launched in 1913 by visionary publisher Condé Nast and editor Frank Crowinshield, Vanity Fair magazine strove to engage its cosmopolitan audience with the vibrant modern culture that sparkled at the beginning of the 20th century. It became a cultural catalyst, introducing and providing commentary on contemporary artists, personalities and writers of this sophisticated new era. With an alluring array of portraits of literary giants to memorable images of men and women of the Jazz Age were commissioned from the greatest photographers of the period in these early years. Among the vintage portraits shown in the exhibition are iconic images of H.G. Wells, Rebecca West, Ernest Hemingway, Albert Einstein, and Pablo Picasso. In 1936, Condé Nast decided to cease publication of Vanity Fair. This marked the end of the magazine’s vintage period.

Images of actress Marlene Dietrich were frequent on the pages of VF, The later image is by Edward Steichen.

Cary Grant, by George Hoyningen-Huene

Paul Robeson in The Emperor Jones

Gloria Swanson

In the affluent eighties, the need arose for a new magazine of this type, and the title was revived in 1983. The vibrant cosmopolitan spirit of the time persuaded Condé Nast Publications to resurrect the magazine. Once again, the magazine succeeded in immortalizing the newsmakers of the day - individuals of talent, stature and accomplishment who were firmly embedded in the popular culture. Vanity Fair’s iconic photographs continue to make news. Post-1983 cover images include a very pregnant Demi Moore (1991), a formal portrait of President George W. Bush’s Afghan War Cabinet (2002) and, recently, actresses Scarlett Johansson and Keira Knightley photographed nude (2006).

Another hallmark to the magazine is its liberal political cometary... It goes with out saying the magazine has allways had a fascination with the Kennedy's and was clear on how they felt about George "Dubbya" Bush.

Lance Armstrong shot by Annie Leibovitz in her signature style.

Julianne Moore as Ingres's 'Grand Odalisque', New York City, by Michael Thompson

Princes Diana

Michael Jackson on the cover of one of VF's most recent issues... The story of Vanity Fair can best be summed up in the rise and sometimes fall of the affluent celebrity world we live in today.

Leaving was hard but I plan on going several more times... Its one thing to see images as they appear in a magazine, but any printing process is an image at least twice removed form the original print. On my visit today I saw many tell-tale signs of how some of the images were made... On a Black and white print of comedian WC Fields the subtle pencil shading added dimensionality to what might of been flat background... While I would never dream of shading in one of my prints with a pencil it does speak to me about the impact of the enhancement to the believability of the image. I will look at images differently after today.

A small portion of my VF collection, perhaps 10 or 11 years worth... three things come to mind when I look at the stack in the image. No matter how poor I was the week each issue came out, a copy was purchased even if it meant I didn't eat that night, conversely and somewhat ironically I have always paid full newsstand price for each issue, one it fit my big city urban fantasy and two, subscriptions are so rural suburbia! Finally VF is still my next big goal in life... A cover or spread on the inside, doesn't matter. Anything would mean I would stand in the pantheon that is the modern photographer.

Note: Some of the images and some of the text (not specified) is copyrighted by Christopher Cushman. Some text via information gleaned at the ROM. Photo credits were given where possible.

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The Dance Through Life Project

Photograph project dedicated to capture the Art of Dance within the parameters of everyday life. The project hopes to capture the innate relationships between dance and everyday life. Images of dance performed in non-traditional locales hopefully demystifying dance as being inaccessible and drawing the obvious metaphor that while all can not express life with such movement and physicality, we all love with our own signature grace. Therefore we all dance.

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Through New Eyes: The Photography of Christopher Cushman by Rinaldo Walcott

The Black male body remains an enigma despite its over representation in the public sphere. The dominance of hip hop culture globally, driven in part, but not exclusively by the innovative sounds of rap music have made Black men a standard by which Black men and other men judge themselves in contemporary culture. However, there is a paradox, because despite the prevalence of hip-hop’s popular global impact, Black men are also still some of the most despised men in Western culture. Stereotypes of criminality, disease and danger still abound and organize Black men’s lives, even within hip hop culture. Thus representations of Black men tend to be much more restricted, than open-ended. The struggle to bring Black men into complex open-ended representations has been an on-going historical struggle. One of the most potent forms of representation in the last one hundred and fifty years has been the photograph. Photography has offered the promise to represent the real in a manner that has both seduce its viewers and baffled them with its artifice. Black male photographic representations in the last half of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first have promised to rescue Black men from the confines of mis-representation and stereotype. One of the most difficult and complicated circumstances of Black male representations has been in the realm of representing their sexuality. Black men’s sexuality is still over-burdened by a perceived threat and danger, especially now in the hyped-up era of the downlow. Then along comes Cushman. I first hear of Christopher Cushman’s photography from my boyfriend. He told me of a guy who was taking photographs of black nudes based upon how they wanted themselves to be seen, not how he posed them as his models. When I met Cushman he confirmed that he did indeed work from the models’ suggested posed and not impose his own. The idea is a great one because it allows the models agency in choosing what they believe to be an adequate representation of who they are. While it is now true that in contemporary culture subjects have learned to play for the camera, offering us artifice on command, this artifice can be understood as exposing inner senses of self and being. Cushman’s photography captures and reveals those inner desires. Look at me, many of the models seems to say. But look at me anew, is also what they seem to project and insist on. Cushman’s eye lavishes these Black male bodies with glimmers of light revealing their nuance personalities. While most of the men are naked their individuality comes clearly through. And yet, their eyes too reveal that they belong to a community, a family and possess desires, fantasies and needs. In these photographs, as viewers we are given new eyes to see beyond our inner voyeur. Cushman channels, Robert Mapplethorpe, Rotimi Fani-Kayode and many other artists, commercial and amateur photographers who seek to rescue the Black male body from the disastrous depths of mis-representation, and who almost always fall short. The conversations that his models create between his work and others whether unconscious or not reveal the profound influence of the image in our time. However, in Cushman’s eyes the Black male body is not being rescued, instead it stands on a self-made pedestal, not arrogantly announcing its existence but coolly (its signature) singing its own praisesong as swathes of light and behind the camera love washes over it. In each moment a small but significant revelation is made. Each revelation offers us the opportunity of an Epiphany – to think a thought about a Black man that we have not thought before. Professor Rinaldo Walcott is a cultural critic and Canada Research Chair of Social Justice and Cultural Studies at the University of Toronto. He lives and writes in Toronto.

FIERCE! Being Black, Being Gay in America

"What Chris has done with this important collection of images, Fierce: Being Black, Being Gay in America, A Photographic Essay, is to seek, lift, and affirm the identity and visibility of men-who love-men and express it in many ways. His photographs display Midwest American men from the outlandish and flamboyant, to the subdued and subtle. You’d think these were “ladies who lunch;” muscular men dressed for the “Park” in lace, and floppy hats to give effect for all to see. Brothers connecting in places we know are safe, such as our nightclubs, the discos, and special events targeting our interests.

The importance of Fierce is paramount: all men are created equal, and share a space on earth. These portraits of men have to be recognized as God’s beauty and not His damnation. Time will thank those who were strong and dared enough to express themselves for all to see and appreciate in a manner that’s loving and creative. Time will also thank us for not living in a paranoid state of mind, and afraid of our own shadows. Remember, this cluster of work isn’t Robert Mappelthope’s approach to black imagery, but the approach of documenting men as they wanted to be seen: with and without sexual stimulation, for shock value."

Curtis A. Lipscomb
Executive Director Kick – The Agency for L-G-B-T African-Americans
Detroit Michigan / 2005
www.e-kick.com